


terminal

by discopolice



Category: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 01:39:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7915504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discopolice/pseuds/discopolice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>some post-game poetry from a theoretical Pritchard's perspective, for funsies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	terminal

before, when he felt shoulders brush in the  
entrance to the elevator, glass-lined, veneered  
it felt like worms burrowing beneath his skin  
ants pressing, pushing, the edges of his nerves where  
the augs leave that imperceptible space for them to slip  
but now they’ve grown flat carbon-fiber wings  
corners sharp, never fly-bitten, strangely resolute  
nicked him in the jugular with a gruff razor-edge  
and, just as they became beautiful, left

mask it in ‘idiot,’ brutish, caps-locked  
heavy-handed to match a heavy heart, beats like the  
old analog clock on the wall, quick and soft, about to stop  
(does his beat firm, black heart between metal-alloy ribs?  
he dreams some nights of reaching between to touch  
but he is no limb clinician and jensen is no project  
despite what the old pressed suit might say)  
(a surgeon-created tool and an organically-grown fool)

on francis, he doesn’t really do the hope thing  
it’s more a compulsion, static in the infolink  
static between his ears, stillness, listening for a voice  
he hasn’t heard in months now and is sure he never will  
(but where has certainty ever gotten him in this business?)  
'rm -rfv /aj’ blinking at his terminal  
(verbose, to see it happen, to know it’s real)  
a zippo flicking, a cigarette hanging between two worn fingers  
of course he doesn’t press enter, but he likes to think he could

so those nights, he is left with  
a wall of promo posters, escapes from years past, memory of comfort  
neuropozyne vials, the burn at the injection site, hissing in  
the smoke-thick space between thought and reality and  
a script, printed, where nucl3arsnake meets a rogue cop  
wins him over with wit, knowing smiles at the end, slow burn  
(an end page, the cop quips 'so, how accurate is the codename’  
torn in two through the words and lying naked in the wastebin)

and yet, he is alive, isn’t he


End file.
